husband without the children? Will she put time aside for a solitary
activity and take the time to jog, meditate, paint, or play a musical
instrument? Or, as is typical of Demeter, will she never find any
time? If she is a professional Demeter woman, all her energy may
go into her work. She may head a nursery school or a professional
program and devote all her time and energy to it, coming home de-
pleted at the end of every day. A professional Demeter needs to
resist being “just Demeter” every bit as much as does the Demeter
woman with five children. If she does not expand beyond Demeter,
she increases the likelihood of an empty-nest depression when she
is no longer needed and finds that she is dispensable after all.
RECOVERING FROM DEPRESSION
A Demeter woman who becomes a grieving, depressed Demeter
has suffered a significant loss. The loss can be anything of great
emotional value to her—a relationship, a role, a job, an
ideal—whatever gave her life meaning that is now gone. And, as
with each of the goddess mythologies, it is possible for a woman to
get “stuck” in any phase or to move through a myth pattern and
grow. Some depressed Demeter women never recover; their existence
remains empty, bitter, and barren.
But recovery and growth are possible. The myth itself presents
two solutions. First, after she knew that Persephone had been abduc-
ted, Demeter left Mt. Olympus to wander on earth. At Eleusis, the
depressed and grieving goddess was welcomed into a household,
where she became the nursemaid of Demophoön. She fed him nectar
and ambrosia, and would have made him into an immortal had his
mother Metanira not interrupted. Thus she coped with her loss by
loving and caring for someone else. Risking another relationship is
one way for a grieving Demeter woman to recover and function
again.
Second, reunion with Persephone led to Demeter’s recovery. The
grieving mother was reunited with her eternally maiden daughter
and ceased being depressed, functioned again as grain and fruit
goddess, and restored fertility and growth to the earth.
Metaphorically, this is what ends a depression: the arche-
Demeter: Goddess of Grain, Nurturer and Mother